Dr. Olusegun Mimiko

Agagu, Denies Alleged Indictment, ThisDay

Ondo State governor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu has refuted the allegation that he was indicted for corruption by a Judicial Commission of Enquiry chaired by Justice Obiora Nwazota.

Agagu’s defence on the alleged indictment was contained in a counter affidavit his lawyer, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode (SAN), filed to a suit before a Federal High Court in Abuja.

The suit, filed by four indigenes of Ilaje Local Government of Ondo State is seeking to void the clearance given to Agagu to seek re-election as governor on the basis of the alleged indictment.

The plaintiffs alleged that Nwazota Panel, in 1999, indicted Agagu for corruption and embezzlement and recommended that he refunds about 43.5 million to the Federal Government, which he allegedly did.

In the counter affidavit to the suit, his counsel said the allegation was spurious, false and misrepresentative. Nwazota Panel, according to the counsel, was set up by the federal Government based on the advice of Agagu, when he was appointed the Minister of Aviation by President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Agagu was said to have advised government to set up the panel following sharp decline in the fortunes of the Nigeria Airways Ltd and the concerned expressed by many Nigerians.

The seven-man panel was inaugurated September 7, 1999 to look into all facets of performance of the airline between 1983 and 1999, to identify reasons responsible for the decline and proffer solutions. He said Agagu could not have been indicted because the period the Panel was mandated to review was prior to his appointment as minister.

In the suit, the plaintiffs had said they were not in possession of the report and the Federal Government white paper on the indictment. Their lawyer, Mr Femi Falana, however, relied on a newspaper publication of September 2005, which purportedly published the indictment.

The defendant’s lawyer in the affidavit said the published report was false, spurious and based on the figment of imagination of the reporter. “The purported indictment published in the newspaper was fake, and was not the report or the decision of the Nwazota Commission,” he said in the affidavit. He said for the plaintiffs to have relied on newspaper cuttings showed that the allegation was a mere speculation, sensational, sponsored and mischievous.

He challenged the plaintiff to produce a certified copy of the indictment and official gazette of the Federal Government on it.
He however said those that were indicted in the recommendation 33 were members of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Nigeria Airways. “It is a common knowledge that Agagu was never a member of the Presidential Task Force on Nigeria Airways, which was established in 1989 and disbanded in 1993,” he said.